


Up With The Birds

by irphanfic



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Cute, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Neighbours, alternative universe, single parent Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irphanfic/pseuds/irphanfic
Summary: Dan is a single parent and he decides that he and his son Theo need to move into a new house. What will happen in the new neighbourhood?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi to you all! I want you to know that english is not my first language so I apologize if you find any typos or mistakes, my fics are only proofread by me so I'm sorry.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy my stories and any type of feedback is welcome!

Yes, Dan was a single parent. One of his biggest dreams was to be a parent, the best dad a child could ever have. So, after he had achieved his career goal he decided he was ready to adopt. Now, 3 years later, he and Theo are ready to move into a new house.

Little Theo was only 6, but he was very clever and energetic. His dad adopted him when he was 3 after his biological parents had negelcted him; but now Dan was his new dad and he loved him so much. They were moving to a new house at the outskirts of London, and he was nervous. Like, really nervous.

‘’What’s wrong, Theo? Nervous?’’ he asked picking him up carrying him to the car.

‘’Yes dad, what is it gonna be like there? What if I can’t make any friends? Or if we have horrible neighbours? Mrs. Patt is so nice, she makes us cookies, dad!’’ Theo exclaimed while his dad was sitting him up in the car seat.

‘’Theo, don’t worry about it. Everything is gonna be fine, I’m sure you will be able to make new friends soon and if our neighbours are really bad, we can always pull a prank on them’’ Dan said cheekily winking at his son.

Dan walked to the driver seat, fastened his seat belt and turned around to face his son ‘’Seriously Theo, you are gonna love this new house, it will be a new place you will get to explore and make new adventures’’.

Theo, with uncertainty in his face, murmured a quiet ‘’okay dad’’ before looking out of the window and trying not to think about his new destination.

_____________________

They arrived at their new house, and yes, it was impressive. It had two floors and now, Theo’s bedroom was twice the size he had back in their other house. Oh, and he had a window where he could see the stars every night. It was awesome!

‘’You like your new bedroom, Theo?’’ Dan asked his son, worried about his response.

‘’I love it dad, it is the best bedroom I have ever seen! And with this window I will be able to see the stars every night, you know how much I love the stars dad!’’ Theo exclaimed with a big smile on his face.

Relieved, Dan sighed and hugged his son ‘’glad you like our new house, my little boy’’.

______________________

After a week of building new furniture and repainting some walls, they decided to go on a walk and explore the neighborhood. Dan and Theo reached a big park where there were so many swings and benches, it was wonderful.

‘’Dad, dad, let’s play in the swings please!’’ Theo excitedly said, reaching for Dan’s hand and running towards the swings.

Once they reached the swings (Dan pretty out of breath since he didn’t do any excercise) Theo suddenly stopped in his tracks, looking quite surprised.

‘’What wrong, Theo?’’ Dan asked confusedly.

‘’Dad, what is that man doing?’’ he pointed to the scene was happening.

Dan looked in the direction his son was pointing at and he saw a man, carrying a birds nest where little birds where tweeting. ‘What an attractive man’ Dan thought WAIT WHAT. Well, he didn’t like to label himself, but he had experimented with girls and boys and he liked both so what was wrong with that?

He lowered to Theo’s level and asked him ‘’do you want to go and ask him?’’ Theo nooded eagerly and grabbed Dan’s hand before walking to the man’s direction.

Theo, as the curious boy he was, tapped the tall man in the thigh and asked him ‘’excuse me, what are you doing with those birds?’’

The man, looked down for a moment and saw the little boy with such curious eyes asking him a question. He lowered down to Theo’s level and began to explain, ‘’you see, I saw the mother of those birds abandoning the nest so I decided to pick them up and bring them to my house and feed them till they can properly fly’’

‘’oh, that’s sad, no one should abandon their child like that’’ Theo muttered quietly, ‘’can we take care of some of those birds too, dad?’’ Theo looked at his father with watery eyes.

‘’Theo, I don’t think that is a good idea… I bet…’’ he looked at the man expecting he said his name.

‘’Phil’’said rapidly.

‘’I bet Phil can take good care of them Theo, don’t worry about them’’ Dan said, expecting Theo to acept this decision, but oh no, he was wrong.

‘’BUT DAD THOSE BIRDS ARE HOMELESS NOW LIKE I WAS BEFORE YOU CAME’’ Theo shouted at his father before he started crying. Dan rapidly picked his son up triying to comfort him the best way he could.

Phil, looking at the scene in front of him, decided to suggest something ‘’Hey Theo, look at me’’ Phil asked sweetly. Theo with tears in his eyes looked at him, curious of what he was going to say next.

‘’Why don’t I bring this nest home and you can visit me anytime you want so you can take care of them too? What do you say?’’ Phil said and rapidly added ‘’only if your dad is okay with it, of course’’

Theo looked at his dad with watery eyes again and quietly said ‘’can we, dad? I will take good care of them with Phil, I promise’’. Dan, seeing how nice Phil was and seeing his son so upset about it, he decided to accept the offer but not before asking for his phone number and adress so they could arrange when he could bring Theo.

Upon hearing the adress, Theo exclaimed excitedly ‘’Dad, dad, that’s next to our house! The cool blue house next to ours!’’ Dan, realizing this looked at Phil first, with a shy smile in his face, then he looked at Theo and agreed with him ‘’yes, you are right Theo, it is the cool house you really like’’ Dan said before letting a soft laugh.

Dan, looked at his now new neighbour and nervously spoke ‘’Well, know I have all your contacts and given the fact that we are neighbours it shouldn’t be difficult to arrange something soon, Phil, thank you’’ said Dan with honesty in his eyes. He looked at his son ‘’Theo, are you ready to play in those swings a bit more?’’

‘’Yes dad! Let’s go!’’ Theo excitedly said before he started running for the swings. ‘’Hey wait up Little man!’’ Dan shouted back.

Phil, looking at the scene in front of him quickly grabbed Dan’s hand and said ‘’wait, I didn’t get your name’’, Dan, shy and with a faint blush in his cheeks responded ‘’Dan, my name is Dan’’ before he let go of Phil’s Hand and started running after Theo.

_____________________

Theo spent the next three days repeatedly asking his dad when he was going to be able to visit the birds (and of course Phil) Dan finally decided to call his neighbour on Friday to see if he was avaliable that afternoon. Phil explained that he had the whole weekend free, so they could come anytime they wanted.

‘’Phil said he is free the whole weekend, do you want to visit the birds this afternoon?’’ Dan asked Theo before hanging the phone call with Phil.

His son’s eyes lit up and excitedly nooded repeatedly before shouting ‘’YES TELL HIM THAT YES DAD I CAN GO’’

Dan, softly laughed into the phone and told Phil they would be there by 4 pm. ‘’okay, I will leave the door open for you two, see you later’’

‘’See you later, Phil’’ soflty said Dan before hanging up the phone.

____________________

As promised, Theo and Dan were at Phil’s door at 4pm, and as their neighbour said, the door was in fact, open. They stepped in and an eager Phil appeared form one of the doors in the hallway ‘’Hi you two! How are you today? C’mon close the door and follow me’’

Phil, as the nice man he was, offered them milshakes and cookies, which Theo clearly loved ‘’Dad, these cookies are better that Mrs, Patt’s’’  he said after stuffing three cookies in his mouth at the same time.

‘’Theo, please slow down, those cookies are not going anywhere’’ Dan apologetically looked at Phil, ‘’sorry’’. But the other man was clearly amused by Theo’s behaviour, ‘’oh don’t worry Dan, from what I have witnessed he is one of the best behaved kids around the neighbourhood, he is the nicest for sure, sure you raised him well’’.

‘’oh I try my best, thank you Phil’’ Dan said as a shy smile appeared on his face. They looked at each others’ eyes, both of them blushing a bit, but the spell was broken when Theo eagerly said ‘’Can we go see the birds now?’’

Phil was the first to look away and awkwardly coughed before standing up and offering Theo his hand ‘’follow me little man, let’s go see the birds’’.

Dan also stood up and followed his son and Phil into a white room, where Phil had carefully put the nest of birds on a table and he had multiple objects scattered around it; he decided to stay in the doorway, and witness what his little man could do without him around. Theo, as curious as he was, began asking multiple questions rapidly which Phil responded. ‘’Okay Theo, now I’m gonna show you how you must feed these little birds, come here’’. Phil, picked Theo up and sat him up in the table so he could see what he was doing, ‘’We take this little syringe with food in it, and we bring it to the little bird’s mouth, see?’’

Theo, amazed about this quietly whispered to Phil ‘’Can I try, Phil? I will be careful I promise’’. Phil handed him the syringe and Theo carefuly grabbed it with his tiny hands. In the most gentle way, Theo brought the syringe to one of the birds, which rapidly started eating. He couldn’t believe it, the bird was eating from the syringe!

The little one excitedly looked at his dad, who was stood at the doorway and sushed ‘’dad!, dad! I’m feeding the birds!, look at them, are you proud?’’ Dan, overwhelmed by what his son was achieving he eagerly nodded ‘’I am so proud of you Theo’’. Upon hearing this words from him, Theo grinned and looked at Phil, ‘’he is proud of me, Phil’’. The man, looked at him and grinned back, ‘’he should be, he should be’’.

Phil, looked at the doorway and saw that Dan wasn’t there, where was he? Had he gone back to his house without saying anything? ‘’Theo, keep feeding the birds, I need to go look for something’’ ‘’Okay Phil’’ Theo noodded without lifting his gaze from the birds.

The man left the room and began asking ‘’Dan, where are you?, Dan?’’ till he heard a faint sound from the kitchen. Phil, definately was not expecting that sight, Dan was sat on one of the kitchen’s barsools faintly crying; he quietly entered the kitchen and whispered ‘’Dan… what’s wrong?’’ Dan, not expecting Phil jumped at the sound ‘’oh Phil, oh nothing is wrong don’t worry’’ he said, his voice hoarse from crying and trying to clean his fresh tears from his face

Phil, of course didn’t buy the tale Dan was telling him so he decided to it in the stool next to him and ask more. ‘’Are you sure? Not to be rude but you are crying, so that cannot mean you are okay unless they are happy tears, and I don’t think they are, care to tell me?’’

Dan, looked down at his hands, he was considering if he could trust Phil. He had watched him interact with Theo, and he decided he could. He took a shaky breath and began talking ‘’I have always been a single parent, and it is not the easiest thing in the world. You know by know that Theo is not my bilogical child, I adopted him when he was three because his parents had neglected him. So it took like about a year to him to start calling me dad, it was the most beautiful sound I had heard; I cried for a few hours after it happened’’ he chuckled.

‘’So, I have always tried to be the best parent he could have, so he could be the happy child I knew he deserved to be and now I saw him with you there, grinning and I started thinking that I have not seen him so happy before. Did I do something wrong to him to not to smile at me like that? Is he not happy enough? I know moving here didn’t make him very happy but still…’’ he took another shaky breath before continuing ‘’I thought I was a better parent, I think I can be a better parent but I don’t know how’’

Phil was debating about what to do next. He met Dan and Theo a few days ago and he was already attached to those two, but he didn’t want to interfere in their father-son relationship. He cautiously laid a hand over Dan’s shoulder and said ‘’Dan, you are the best dad Theo could have. I have seen how you treat him, you are a wonderful dad. He could not ask for a better dad, I’m sure about that’’.

Dan looked at Phil and questioned again ‘’but, why hasn’t he smiled at me like that before? I mean, I might be his dad but he hasn’t been that happy with me in these years tan he was with you in that moment’’.

Phil, rubbed his hand a bit and started thinking what to say next. He was extremely sorry that Theo had been that happy with him but he can’t do anything to reverse it. After a minute, he recalled a thing that happened in the white room ‘’wait Dan, you said you hadn’t seen him so happy before being with me? I think I know why he was that happy’’

A confused Dan looked at him, as is waiting for an explanation ‘’why…?’’

‘’Well’’ Phil started, ‘’you said you were proud of him, I think that’s why he was so happy, Dan, because you said you were proud of him, haven’t you told him that before?’’

Dan, upon realizing this sat up rapidly form the stool and brought his hands to his hair and started walking in circles ‘’oh my god that’s it! I have never told him how proud I am, I mean, I always took for granted he knew that but I… I…’’ He stopped pacing around and looked at his neighbour ‘’thank you so much Phil for making me realise this’’ he smiled sincerely at him.

Suddenly, they heard a sound in the kitchen doorway. It was Theo, who in a tiny voice began asking ‘’Dad, are you crying because of me? Did I do something wrong? If I did I’m sorry dad, I never meant to do it, I don’t want you to cry’’

‘’Theo…’’ Dan lowered himself to his son’s level and began ‘’no, don’t worry Theo I’m not crying because of you, I’m crying because I realised I haven’t told you how proud I am of you, how a proud father you make me’’ he started crying again ‘’I’m sorry for not saying that to you earlier but always know I am, I have been and I will always be proud of you’’

‘’Oh dad…’’ Theo rapidly put his arms arround his fathers neck and wishpered ‘’you are the best dad I could have ever asked for, I’m so glad you are my dad’’

‘’I’m so glad I am your dad too, Theo. I am.’’

_________________________

A few days had passed since that moment, and now Theo and Dan were closer that ever. They spent the weekend afternoons at Phil’s, the three of them feeding the birds. It wasn’t also Theo and Dan becoming closer now, oh no, now Dan and Phil were starting to get closer to eachother too.

Apparently, the birds were fine now to leave them grow up in the wild, so they arranged a date to set them free by Theo’s window. Theo made the point that his window was ‘’closer to the sky so they would feel more at ease there’’. Dan and Phil agreed with him. So, they decided to free the birds on Saturday, since Phil wasn’t avaliable on Friday.

Saturday came faster that Theo could imagine. He excitedly woke up, went to his dad’s bedroom and woke him up by jumping in his bed. When Dan finally properly woke up, he found Theo tidying his bedroom for Phil’s arrival; that thought made him smile a bit.

At 4pm the doorbell rang and Theo rapidly run down the stairs to open the door. With his little hands he reached the door handle, opened as fast as he could and while jumping up and down grabbed Phil’s hand and started bringing him to his bedroom and closing the door ‘’Phil! Phil! I hope you are as excited as me to see the birds fly!’’ he told him.

Phil laughing sweetly answered ‘’of course I am Theo, here I have them, ready to set them free’’ he showed him the carboard box with some holes in them. The tall man looked around and wondered where Dan was ‘’where is your dad?’’

‘’Oh, he is preparing some snacks to eat later on you know, as a thank you for letting me take care of the little birdies’’ Theo answered.

‘’No worries, I’m glad I could share this experience with both of us’’ he sincerely told Theo. He was glad he had found such a nice and sweet father and son. He looked at Theo, who had a thinking face plastered. ‘’Theo, what are you thinking about?’’

Theo, looked at Phil and directly asked ‘’Phil, do you like my dad? As a boyfriend I mean’’

Phil, taken aback by the question didn’t know what to say. Did he like Dan? Did he like Dan more than a friend? He supposed that yes, he could get to know Dan and Theo even more and he could see himself falling in love with him.

‘’Yeah, I think I do. After all this time together with you both I think I would like to get to know you both even more, and yes, I would like to be your fathers’ boyfriend’’ he answered honestly.

‘’Great!’’ Theo exclaimed ‘’because dad has always been alone and I want him to have someone like you. I know he is happy with his life, I know he loves me, but I want him to love another person as much as he loves me and be loved back because he deserves it’’.

Phil lowered to Theo’s level and told him ‘’Theo, he deserves all the love in the world, your father is a wonderful person and I will be glad if I can be the one who gives it to him, but you need to take in account that he might not like me back and that is fine’’.

Theo raised his arms and hugged Phil tightly and whispered a ‘’thank you’’ before wandering off to find his dad. To his surprise, his dad was right by his doorway, having listened to everything Theo and Phil had said before, but they didn’t need to know that. What did he do to deserve such an amazing son?  

‘’Well, are you ready to set the birds free, little man?’’ Dan happily asked Theo.

‘’Yes dad! Finally we are going to see them fly! I’m so nervous!’’ Theo jumped up and down again, bouncing in his toes.

They entered Theo’s bedroom where Phil was opening the ceiling window. Once he had opened it, he handed Theo the box where the birds where and looking at Dan he asked ‘’can I pick him up in my shoulders so he can open the box?’’

Dan, with a smile whispered ‘’yeah, of course’’. As he watched Phil pick his son up on his shoulders and making sure he was fine, they walked towards the window.

Theo, who had the box in his hands was quietly wishpering something to the birds, making Dan and Phil laugh. Then, he lifted the box towards the window and carefuly opened the lid. ‘’Be safe!’’ Theo shouted as he saw the birds fly towards the sky. He was amazed by the sight.

Once all the birds had fled from the box, Phil put Theo down on the floor again ‘’did you like the experience, Theo?’’ he asked him, seeing how excited the little boy was.

‘’I loved it Phil! I wish we could do it again!’’ he rapidly answered before going down the stairs to get the snacks his father had made.

Dan and Phil found themselves alone in Theo’s bedroom. Dan, in a soft voice, looked at Phil in the eyes and said ‘’Phil, thank you for giving my son one of the best experiences of his life, and also for bringing us closer than we were before’’

‘’Oh Dan, there is no need to thank me, you made it yourself, you are the amazing parent, I just rescued some birds who your son seemed to love’’ the both laughed.

Phil, remembering the earlier conversation he had with Theo, nervously started fidgeting with his hands ‘’erm Dan, look, this experience brought Theo and you closer but I think it brought us closer too and I you can say no if you want but… would you… I don’t know, go on a… a date.. with me? You can decline the offer if you want is just that I like you and…’’

Dan, who had a sly smile on his face, grabbed Phil’s head and made him look directly into his eyes ‘’Phil, yes, I will go on a date with you, now stop rambling and kiss me’’. And so he did. Little did they know there was a little munchkin with a smile on his face watching them from the doorway.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this story! You can follow me on Tumblr at irphanfic.tumblr.com to know the updates of my phanfics or if you want to prompt me anything. See you next time! :D


End file.
